Lion's Thorn
by grandvizier527
Summary: One morning Lion gets a thorn in his paw, and Steven sets about to removing it.


Lions Thorn

Steven awoke to find a familiar pink paw nudging his body.

"Lion, don't wake me up like that!" he moaned groggily. "I want more sleep." Steven rolled over to find that a beam of morning sunlight was now in his face. A few minutes later and the light would cover his whole bed, making sleep impossible.

"On second thought, thanks, Lion! I think I usually wake up earlier than this!" he said as he got out of bed and got dressed. Heading down the stairs, he realized that none of the Gems were around, although Lion continued to follow him, making a low, purr-like sound to get his attention. Steven looked at saw that there was a dark purple thorn in his front paw, which forced him to walk awkwardly on 3 legs.

"Aw, what did you get yourself into?" Steven asked him. "Don't worry, I'll get it out. Just hold it out and hold still. It will only hurt for a second!" Steven grasped the thorn in his fingers and pulled. But the thorn was unexpectedly long, and Steven found himself having to pull away from Lion's paw more than he expected. The thorn grew longer from Lion's paw as Steven pulled, increasing in size from about half of the length of his paw to the full length of his paw.

"Did this go to your mane or something?" Steven asked his pet, who of course gave no response. "Is this some kind of magic thorn? Is it evil? It sure seems that way if you can't get it out." Steven tugged at it some more, noticing that by this point the thorn seemed to be putting up some sort of resistance.

"Uh, let me get something," Steven told Lion. "I don't know why, but this is one tricky thorn. Just stay right there, ok?" Lion nodded, climbing onto Steven's bed and dangling the affected paw over the edge as Steven still grasped the thorn. When Steven let go, the thorn snapped back to its original length, sending most of the shaft back inward into Lion's body, although this didn't seem to hurt Lion in the slightest.

"Whoa, that is one weird thorn!" Steven remarked. He headed downstairs and checked the kitchen cabinets for anything that might work. Nothing he found looked to be of any use.

"Hmm…wonder where the Gems are?" Everything was suspiciously clean and orderly; normally Amethyst would have taken out some food from the fridge to watch TV with him in the mornings, or Pearl would be cleaning the mess that was made. But no food or residue was present today.

"Guess they went somewhere in a hurry this morning," he said aloud as he wandered out to the front porch. All he saw was the ocean, and all he heard were the rhythmic movements of the tides.

Steven went back inside to use the warp pad, visiting every location he had been to with the Gems.

"Garnet?" Steven asked as he arrived at the Sea Spire, his voice not carrying far due to the churning waves. The only land in sight was the warp panel he stood on. A brown rag drifted about in the water, and Steven reached down to grab it.

"Don't…shake…me…" the toy moaned faintly, its mechanized voice slowing down and turning into a dull, agonized-sounding moan.

"Mr Queasy?" Steven asked.

Next was the Heaven Temple. Steven climbed up the mountains, noticing how they had gotten much steeper and rockier since he remembered coming here last. A figure standing on one of the floating cliffs caught his eye.

"Steven Jr.!" he cried, reaching his arm out to the goat. But it ignored him, instead hopping away. He realized it probably wasn't him—or rather, her.

The desert showed little as well; Steven didn't stay long here due to the winds forcing sand into his eyes, making it impossible to see anything.

The cave was still in good condition, although Steven couldn't help but think that it was wider than it had been before. Pressing some buttons caused all of the weapons and armor to appear, the ones he had seen when Lion took he and Connie here.

"Connie?" Steven asked. Remembering that he had her number, Steven called her, but there was no answer.

The beach with the warp panel was next, where he had first seen Sugilite and Sardonyx. Surely the Gems would be here!

"Crystal Gems? Anybody here?" Steven asked as he went up the steps to observe the warp panels. Faded stickers adorned the warp pads, but nothing gave a response.

"Where has everybody gone?" Steven cried, storming back down the steps to check another spot.

Rose's Fountain was crumbled, covered in moss and decaying with age. Brambles and thorns once more surrounded her likeness. Steven felt like he should leave, so he did.

The island was barren now, full of dead trees and surrounded by brackish water. But still, no Gems were there.

"Why would they hide from me like this?" Steven asked. "Is it my birthday already?"

He knew that wasn't it, but it was fun to pretend.

Kindergarten looked the most miserable of all; giant machines resembling bacteriophages were still in position, ready to burrow into the earth. Despite being covered in dirt and rust, they looked as if they would suddenly come to life and resume their dark mission once more.

"Amethyst?" Steven called out. "Is this some kind of a joke? Because if it is I don't think it's funny!" Surely she would never act like this, and surely Pearl and Garnet wouldn't go along with this sick game.

The Strawberry Battlefield had once been beautiful; now it was a gnarled wasteland full of rotten fruit. Steven careful navigated his feet through the dead plants so that his sandals wouldn't snag on anything. As the strawberry plants gave way to normal grass, still looking green and untouched, he came to the top of a cliff, hoping to find the Gems down below, smiling and beckoning for him to come and enjoy his birthday party, which they had decided to hold right there.

"Pearl?" Steven demanded when he reached the top. She wasn't there, and neither were Amethyst or Garnet. Where could they have gone? Why would they just leave like this? Something urgent must have come up. Perhaps Ruby and Sapphire had split up in a fight and one of them had been kidnapped? Or had everyone been defeated in battle and the whole group was recovering in their gemstones?

Steven was about to head back to the Temple's warp pad when he heard his sandal touch a piece of paper. It was a note written in neat cursive with light blue ink—clearly Pearl's handwriting:

 _Steven, we're sorry to have left you like this! We had something unexpected happen, so we'll have to go. We'll be back soon, though!_

 _Love…_ Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl had signed their names, each in a unique signature that Steven could instinctively tell was theirs. There were ink blotches at the bottom right-hand corner of the note, but otherwise it looked like a plain sheet of paper.

"Well, I guess if the Gems are gone, there's nothing I can do," Steven declared. A dreadful silence flooded the battlefield as he said those words, and he suddenly began to shiver. It had apparently gotten colder.

"But there's still my dad!" Steven realized. "I could just go to him and he could fix Lion's thorn!"

Returning to the Temple at last, Steven found Lion still waiting patiently where he had left him. "Go to my dad's place!" Steven ordered, and Lion gave a gruff roar, opening up a portal which he jumped straight into, taking Steven with him.

"Steven! You almost gave me a heart attack!" Greg cried, reeling backwards in the lawn chair he had been sitting in. Steven gingerly stepped off of Lion and apologized.

"I just need a pair of pliers. Lion has a thorn in his paw!" Steven explained. "You can get it out, can't you?"

"I think I've got the pliers," Greg mused. "You can help me look for them. I think we could work faster."

"Great idea, Dad!" Steven cried. "Oh, wait, I just remembered! The thorn is magic so we can't just pull it out. We'll probably have to push from the inside, too! I'll get inside Lion's mane and see if I can push the thorn out to you while you pull at it from the other end!"

"Slow down, son, let me just find the pliers first!" Greg insisted. Once those had been found, Steven climbed back up onto Lion while Greg gripped the thorn in his still-outstretched paw.

"Listen, I don't know if this will work," Greg said. "And I don't even know if it's even that important."

"What do you mean, 'not important'?" Steven protested. "Lion can't just go around on three legs with a thorn in his paw!"

"No, he can't, but is it really that big of a deal?" Greg asked. Steven gave a firm nod and dove into Lion's mane.

Inside the mane lay a vast pink savannah, unchanged from the times Steven had been here before. Finally, he thought, a place still full of life and untouched by time and the cruel hand of…!

Time.

Steven pushed his way through the pink grasses, his sandals kicking up dust and a few white pebbles as he rushed to the source of the thorn, sticking up from out of the ground like a stake. From this side, too, it looked like a dark purple color, but with a magenta streak running through it. Steven pushed at the structure with his hands, careful to not cut himself on the spiky end of the thorn. When he found that his strength wasn't enough, he activated his shield from his gem and used it to push the thorn further downward into the ground, and hopefully out of lion's body. He could feel Greg pulling it at the other end, despite the thorn's struggle to keep itself lodged in place. It couldn't resist forces coming from opposite directions, however, and eventually the thorn vanished into the pink ground.

Steven left Lion, overjoyed to find the thorn lying harmlessly on the ground and Lion licking the paw where it had been lodged in.

"Ok, Steven, glad we could get that done," Greg said, wiping his brow. Glancing at the thorn, he grimaced. "Oh, looks like it's obsidian."

"Wow, that sounds like a really cool type of rock!" Steven remarked. "But how did it get inside of Lion?"

"I don't know, but I meant that it was _from_ Obsidian. You know, the Gem?"

"Who?"

"Steven…"

"Hold that thought, Dad. Lion's paw is bleeding! You've got some bandages in your van, right?"

"I think Lion will be fine."

"I'll just check…"

"Steven."

"Anyway, do you know when my birthday is? I can't seem to remember."

"I know this is hard for you." Steven ignored him, continuing to rummage through his stuff. Greg scowled when Steven brushed aside some purple shards. Greg bent down to scoop them up, his back aching.

"Stop doing this, Steven!"

"I'm just trying to find some bandages!" Steven insisted. "I'm going to have to toss out this bottle, though…"

"Steven, NO!" Greg quickly grabbed the bottle and set it down, letting the red and blue sand in it all run back down to the bottom.

"What I just need to…" Steven began. Greg knew how to end it.

"GROW UP!" Greg shouted.

"What do you know about growing up?" Steven asked. "You've been living in this van for years!" Greg shook his head. He was putting his sense back into him, but it would take just a bit more persuasion.

"Considering that I've actually been doing that, and you've been holding it back, living at the Temple for longer than you should, I think I know a thing or two about growing up. I'm living now, not in the past."

"Got the bandages," Steven muttered, but Greg snatched them from him and held them over his head. "Gimme those back, Dad!"

"You'll have to take them from me," Greg insisted sternly.

"Give…it…BAAAACK!" Steven shouted, his voice reverting to what it truly was. Towering over his father at last, he took the bandages and ran, scrambling onto Lion, who gave a cough and collapsed from being unable to carry him.

"Come on, Lion, we have to go!" Steven grunted, absentmindedly scratching a beard that belonged to an unshaved man in his 30s.

"Obsidian was too much for them," Greg reminded Steven. "She cracked their gems and shattered them. I was lucky to just find what was left of them. I found a few shards belonging to Amethyst, and some powder from Ruby and Sapphire. I put them in the bottle together, I think they would have wanted that. But they'll never be Garnet again."

"No!" Steven cried. "It's not true! It never happened!"

"Yes, it did happen," Greg insisted. "20 years ago. You've been living in the past, letting yourself pretend that the present just has a few minor problems where you can come in and save the day. Just as the Crystal Gems did for a long time, especially when we needed them the most. Just like Connie."

"Connie…" Steven sobbed. He was off of Lion now, burying his tear-stricken face into his fur. Lion nuzzled Steven and pushed forward some white pebbles. Steven looked at them momentarily. "Pearl," he whispered.

"Your mother wouldn't want you like this," Greg urged. "She knew this could happen one day. All of them knew. And they did it anyway, because they knew you'd be safe, and Beach City would be safe, and the whole Earth would be safe. At least, for a little while. There are more Gems. More monsters, Steven. You have to do something."

"But…they were my friends. My family," Steven said. "Now all that's left are you and Lion."

"The Crystal Gems were meant to be your guardians, not parents that would keep holding your hand. It's time to stop lingering over petty things and do what they would have done. They trusted you. Don't let them down anymore."

Steven looked at the note he had taken with him.

 _Steven, we're sorry to have left you like this! We wish it hadn't ended up this way. We will love you forever! Make Rose and the Gem race proud!_

 _Love…GARNET_

 **Amethyst!**

 _And Pearl_

The blotches were red now.


End file.
